Photo by Cassini Aircraft, courtesy of NASA/JPL-CALTECH/Space Science Institute
The National Aeronautics Space Agency’s (NASA) Cassini Aircraft will soon wrap up its final days voyaging through Saturn’s rings.
But before the unmanned mission signs off for good, one of its cameras captured an image of the Earth and the Moon—shot nearly a million miles away.
The stunning photograph, which was taken exactly 870 million miles (1.4 billion kilometers) away from Earth last April 12, was made accessible to the public over the weekend, the National Geographic reported.
Although the image appears small on detail due to the absurd distance, it still shows the Earth and its Moon orbiting around the Sun, while peeking through the famed cosmic rings.
A zoomed-in image of the stunning shot. Photo by Cassini Aircraft, courtesy of NASA/JPL-CALTECH/Space Science Institute
The Cassini aircraft, meanwhile, has been in Saturn’s orbit since 2004.
With the mission reportedly coming to an end in a few months, NASA will surely be documenting every ounce of information from its high-tech probe sensors.
A similar voyage using an instrument called HiRISE (high resolution imaging science experiment) is currently orbiting Mars, as part of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Khristian Ibarrola/JB
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